Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

If I told the Taoiseach that cuckoo funds have been betting on this Government to the tune of €53 million every week this year, he would probably say I am being overdramatic. It is true, however. Despite its claims of ignorance about the activities of these cuckoo funds, the Government is up to its neck in it. Last year, GillenMarkets, a financial advisory firm based in Dublin, published a note to its wealthy investors which stated:

The current high level house prices and rents in Ireland's residential property market have been driven in a significant way by the Government's housing policy with favourable policies attracting institutional investors such as IRES REIT into the market. Their gradual move into the market has contributed to higher house prices and thus higher rents. [It continues] ... Overall the current housing policy has benefited both institutions and developers at the expense of individual buyers. The potential risk for institutions such as IRES comes from a potential change in Government policy.

The cuckoo funds do not really care about our housing crisis. They only care about their bottom line. They view the complete absence of affordable homes as a major incentive to invest here. Worse, they view the lack of affordable homes as a deliberate Government policy.

The assessment by GillenMarkets of the Government's policy is pretty damning stuff. The Government, however, is not unaware of it. Last June, The Times, Ireland edition, published a lengthy article about this and contacted the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage for a comment. Regrettably, the Department did not seem interested.

Rents in Ireland increased by 62% between 2010 and 2020. At the same time, the average rent across the European Union increased by 15%. Is it any wonder that institutional investors are looking to Ireland? Rents in Dublin are more than 30% higher than they were at the peak of the Celtic tiger. That does not come as a surprise to those who have been struggling to pay those rents. It has not come as a surprise to those who have been trying to save for a mortgage because they know that renting is not sustainable in the long term with what is happening.

It is not that we only have a supply side crisis; we have an affordability crisis. It is central to the problem. All the evidence is that the best method of delivering affordability is the interventionist approach. This is the one the global funds fear. We saw this with the Ó Cualann model. However, that is not being delivered to scale which is needed. The key reason the Government decided to act now is because Mullen Park was a catalyst for change. Such sales will not be tolerated any longer.

The Government is committed to making changes regarding houses in housing estates-----

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